Tough weekend for Nakano at round three

Shinya Nakano was disappointed following the MotoGP race at Estoril on Sunday, having been unable to improve on his ninth place finish at Jerez, as he crossed the line tenth in Portugal.

The Japanese San Carlo Honda Gresini rider was hoping for a better result after some encouraging signs in wet conditions during free practice earlier in the weekend, but like several other Bridgestone riders at the bwin.com Grande Premio de Portugal he struggled for competitive lap times during the race itself.

`It was a really, really hard race for us in the end. At the beginning of the race I saw some rain drops and I was not sure if I could push or not so I lost some places. Later on I got back on the pace and I was following Loris Capirossi, but I couldn´t overtake him.´

`We made a good tyre choice and the setting was satisfactory but I suffered some problems with the rear of the bike,´ continued Nakano, `so we must work on the suspension to improve stability under acceleration.´

Meanwhile, Nakano´s Chief Mechanic Antonio Jimenez told motogp.com, `It was quite difficult and we knew it would be before the start. Shinya started quite badly and for us it was a hard race. But we saw a big difference with the tyres and hopefully at some tracks in the future Bridgestone will be better, and we can get a better result.´

`Here you could see that even Valentino Rossi was struggling and we just have to look forward. The next race is in China and I´m hoping for a wet race, which I think is the only way we can get a good result, which for us would be top five.´